


Lichtenberg/Teacup

by Arazsya



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-21
Updated: 2018-02-21
Packaged: 2019-03-21 22:56:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13750947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arazsya/pseuds/Arazsya
Summary: The man with the scar wanders into the Archives as if he owns the place.





	Lichtenberg/Teacup

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for episodes up to and including Nothing Beside Remains, probably. Apologies to those with more than my vague understandings of How Gunshot Wounds Work and The Proper Ways of Making Tea.

The man with the scar wanders into the Archives as if he owns the place. Pauses, comfortable and casual. Considers the files on the shelves, makes a faint humming noise. He could almost be loitering outside a pub; his hands are stuffed into the pockets of his ill-fitting hoodie, and if he’s at all bothered by the bullet hole in his forehead, he doesn’t show it.

Martin can’t say the same; he stands up so fast that his chair falls, cracks against the boards so loudly that it can probably be heard throughout the Archives. Not that there’s anyone else there to hear. The man hears, though, his head snapping towards him, and something behind Martin’s sternum scrunches, convinced that he’s been impolite.

The man nods to him, and the hair towards the back of his head is spiked, clotted together. _Exit wound_ , Martin thinks, and the scrunching turns into a knot.

“Hello,” he says, making his way over to Martin’s desk, his tone is genial enough that the knot releases a bubble of laughter at the absurdity. Martin swallows it, painfully. “The lady on reception sent me down. She said this was probably where I needed to be. The Archives, right?”

Martin nods. He wrenches his attention away from the bullet hole, only to find it caught by the patterns of the man’s scar, following the fall of faint lines across his skin. They branch and curl like lichen, and by the time he recognises it as the Lichtenberg Figure, he’s already given it gentler associations.

“I was looking for the Archivist?” the man tries, and the friendliness is starting to wear.

“He’s not here,” Martin says. His hand shifts towards his phone, then drifts away again. If he’s going to die now, it’s probably best not to have anyone else rushing in. And besides, Elias probably already knows. Better to pick up his chair. But that would mean leaning down, and Martin’s fairly sure that he shouldn’t lose sight of the monster.

“Any idea where he is?”

“No.”

“Any idea when he’ll be back?” The smile is gone now, and there’s the slightest of twitches under the skin of the man’s face.

“No.” There’s a familiar ache in his throat when he admits to that.

The man laughs, his head tipping back. A thin rivulet of blood trickles down the side of his neck and is lost amidst the tendrils of his scar.

“What sort of acolyte of the Beholding are you? You don’t know anything.”

“Sorry?” Martin hazards, but the man grins, shakes his head.

“No, no,” he says. “It’s refreshing. Not sure it’ll last, but, for now.”

It’s far too easy to answer his smile. Even though Martin’s not entirely sure whether or not he’s just been insulted, the man’s expression is completely genuine, and it’s been so very long since he’s seen anyone look that happy. He breathes in the concept like someone half-drowned, and the knot slides easily from his chest.

There’s a faint noise from somewhere else in the Institute – a door closing, perhaps – and Martin’s face falls, his shoulders hunching as the abrupt idea that they might get caught burns across them. He corrects that a moment later, decides that it’s just being brought back to the proper reality, where this man is a monster, because no one wanders about with a gunshot wound to the forehead unless they’re a monster or a very enthusiastic LARPer, and he knows which is more likely in the Archives. And every other time he’s met a monster, he’s been prey.

A full minute of silence passes before Martin decides that Elias isn’t just going to appear in the doorway and sort everything out. Martin’s life probably isn’t worth him leaving his office.

“Are you going to kill me?” he asks, and wonders why there’s not a tremor in it.

“Hm?” the man sounds distracted, his eyes back towards the boxes of files. Perhaps he’s trying to work out which ones he’s in. “Kill you? No, you’re not worth the effort that would take in here.”

“Okay?” Martin chews at the inside of his cheek, lets it slip between his teeth. “Tea?”

The man’s focus pings back to him like a rubber band, and he smiles in the easy summer-evening-at-the-pub sort of way that almost brings Martin too close to forgetting about the hole in his skull.

“Tea would be great,” the man says, and leans forward a little, his shadow reaching across Martin’s desk. “Glad someone still appreciates it.”

“How do…” Martin’s voice squeaks, and he pauses to clear his throat. “How do you take it?”

“However it comes.” The man looks at him like he’s sharing a secret. Martin thinks for a second that he can see more of those branching patterns in his eyes, then tries to fill his mind with the question of whether or not how the tea’s made actually matters, because if taste is controlled by the brain then the man probably hasn’t got any anyway.

“Right,” he says, and flees in the vague direction of the kettle.

The familiar process isn’t as helpful as he’d hoped. He waits for the kettle to boil, and his mind thinks itself across the patterns on the man’s skin. He can still feel his presence, hear the noise of him stooping to pick up Martin’s chair. He wishes he could busy himself with texting Rosie, ask her to phone the next time she sends a monster down, but he’s not sure what he would have done, even if he had been forewarned, and his phone’s still on his desk.

The pot warms, and Martin glances over his shoulder to see the man already watching him, though not with quite the same focus as he had before. He nearly burns his hand pouring the water onto the teabag, and the rituals of sugar and milk aren’t enough to cover the heat of the man’s awareness at his shoulders.

He sets the tea down on the far side of his desk, and the man frowns for a second at the Institute-branded mug. Martin swallows the explanation that the only other ones they have are the ones Tim brought from home and wouldn’t appreciate a monster using, wraps his fingers around his own and settles back into his chair.

“Why were you looking for Jon?” he asks, and the man’s eyes are suddenly sharp over the rim of his tea.

“Got shot,” he says, finally. “I’m healing, but it was rude. I’d quite like to know where I can find who did it. The Archivist was there.”

“Oh.” Martin stares down into his mug. The china’s hot against his hands, and he detaches himself from the concept of burning so that he doesn’t have to let go of it. “Does that mean you won’t kill him either?”

“Didn’t before.” The man’s nearly growling now, something the pleasantness dropping away like the scales from a butterfly’s wing. He picks up his tea in a way that seems deliberately heavy, and heads for one of the other chairs.

Martin bites his tongue against a protest when the man sits in what’s usually Tim’s seat, not that he’s been using it so much lately, but he must have heard something anyway, because he looks up at Martin, eyebrows raised and the smile back but a little uglier.

Maybe he was expecting Martin to say that he hadn’t answered him, but there’s no way of looking at the man now that doesn’t tell him that he can always _make_ himself worth the effort to kill. And he clearly doesn’t like questions. But Martin still has the one more.

“Sorry,” he says, on some level aware that he was always going to have to have said _something_ , or the man would remove his attention and go back to waiting for Jon in silence. “But are you Michael Crew?”

“Mike.” The correction’s firm but not sharp enough to shut the conversation down.

“Martin.” Martin hesitates, but a part of him feels that it would be rude not to acknowledge it. “You’re in some of our statements.”

“So I’m told.” Mike sounds a little lighter again, the look he gives Martin almost like that of an actor acknowledging a role in a popular tv series, sideways and charming. “It’s the scar, isn’t it? That’s what they remember.” He makes that humming noise again, and Martin studies the disturbed surface of his tea. “I suppose it is rather distinctive. Better than being made of wax, though.”

“What?”

“Does your Archivist not tell you about _any_ of the things which could kill you?” Mike asks the question with a laugh in his voice, but it hasn’t made it onto his face.

Martin’s grip on his mug whitens.

“It looks a bit like a potato print,” he says, just to change the subject. “Your scar.”

“A what?” Mike’s abruptly on his feet, and starting back towards Martin’s desk.

“A potato print.” Martin knows it probably isn’t wise, but his teeth ache every time he hears Jon called _Archivist_ , all that meaning coiled behind it like a snake. “You get a potato, cut it, cover it in paint, and press it against a piece of paper. It leaves these patterns, you have to look quite closely, but they’re there.”

“Why would you use a potato for that?”

Martin shrugs. “I suppose they’re cheaper than pre-made stamps.”

Mike leans against the desk next to Martin, takes the mug from him and sets it down on the table. This close, Martin can see a faint dusting of earth on his jeans, but the hand that reaches towards him is clean, the skin splayed with the unfurling patterns of the Lichtenberg figure.

“Potatoes?” he asks, holding the marks out for inspection, so close that his fingers almost brush against Martin’s face. “Are you sure?”

Martin holds his breath and gently tugs Mike’s arm down to get a better look. The scars half-remind him of Jon’s scars, Tim’s scars, made by something other crawling beneath the skin, leaving trails on the surface that could never be removed. But Mike’s are white and stark and almost delicate.

“Or coral,” he says, almost unconsciously following the line of the scars with his fingers. “Maybe those fossilised ferns you get in tiles sometimes.” He glances up, and Mike’s half-smile stills him.

“Interesting,” Mike says, and there’s an amused incredulity to it. “Martin, wasn’t it?” His hand turns to grip Martin’s wrist, firmly enough that for a heartbeat he thinks he can feel the scars on Mike’s skin over his own. “Tell me, Martin, how do you feel about rollercoasters?”

“Um,” Martin says, and something twists inside of his head. A sudden rush of dizziness, and he’s falling, too fast and too far. His blood feels silver with it, awake and alive in a way he barely remembers, and then Mike’s hand is gone, his fingers ghosting away from Martin’s pulse. Martin drags in a rush of breath against the shock of it, and finds Mike’s face far closer to his than he remembers it.

Mike smiles at him with a cousin of the easy charm that Martin remembers from how Tim had been, once, and for a second, he could swear that it’s earnest.

“Um,” he says again. He doubts he can remember any other words.

“This place will watch you die,” Mike tells him. He smells of cold air and colder winds, the sort that could scour all the pain from Martin’s lungs. “Your Archivist will watch you die. If you stay here. But there are ways. Ways you can let go of it, have it let go of you. Don’t you want to let go, Martin?”

“I,” Martin manages, uselessly. The world pitches again, but this time he can tell that it’s not Mike doing it, not directly. It won’t steady, and he knows he could relax into it so easily, kiss Mike or let Mike kiss him.

“You don’t ever have to hit the ground,” Mike murmurs, and Martin can almost see the vibrations of it in his throat, a trick of low sound and twisting vision. “Not with me. Here, it’ll break every bone in your body.”

Martin lets himself wonder what sort of monster he’d make. He closes his eyes, still aware of every detail of Mike’s outline, of the precise path of the Lichtenberg scar, of the way his hands are tracing the air millimetres away from Martin’s skin. He tries to be aware of the empty, too, of the sky that Mike belongs to, and it sings of boundlessness to his chained heart.

He shakes his head, and Mike steps away from him, gone so completely that it feels like there’s no oxygen left in his lungs. He can’t stop himself from looking after him, from watching as he tears a strip from the bottom of what Martin dearly hopes is a discredited statement, and snatches a pen from Tim’s desk.

“Think it over,” Mike says, scribbling something, and then moving back towards Martin. This time, he stops on the far side of the desk. “And remember, I appreciate a good cup of tea.”

Martin tries to look away from him, to focus himself again. Jon. Tim. The hole in Michael Crew’s head. But Mike’s smile has so much possibility in it, so many promises.

“Tell the Archivist I was here,” Mike says, then lets the shred of paper drift down onto Martin’s desk. “And that’s for you. In case you ever feel like falling.”


End file.
